A bevy of beach bars
For a tiny Caribbean speck, Jost van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands, certainly has a preponderance of beach bars
The system works. I present a dripping-wet $10 bill and bartender Mic whips up a wicked-good Painkiller for me.
After all, this is Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands and it’s the stuff of Caribbean legend.
The watering hole’s name was coined after tourists swam to White Bay Beach from their yachts and catamarans with pocketfuls of wet currency to buy drinks.
Now, my wife and I landed at Jost van Dyke on a Windstar cruise so we were bone dry when we arrived at the Soggy Dollar.
But, I just had to take a dip in the turquoise sea with $10 in the pocket of my swimshorts in order to have the full-on Soggy experience.
By the way, the Soggy Dollar invented the Painkiller, a heady mixture of white rum, fruit juices and nutmeg with a final splash of dark rum, apparently, as bartender Mic says, “to make you horny.”
Mic is a busy boy making 10 Painkillers at a time and putting the dry bills in the cash register and hanging the soaking ones on a mini-clothes line.
There’s not much to do in Jost, except to play in the glittering Caribbean and frequent beach bars.
We gladly accepted the mission. So, it’s off to Foxy’s. Foxy, aka Philiciano Callwood, is another island institution.
His eponymous beach bar is right on the sandy path that doubles as the main street of this island that has a whopping population of 300.
When we arrive on a rainy Tuesday night, the place is hopping like it’s the Saturday of a holiday long weekend.
Everything’s slightly politically incorrect at Foxy’s, from the names of the drinks we order (Friggin’ in the Riggin’ and Bananawhacker) to the dirty dancing and the off-colour jokes Foxy, 77, tells me.
Foxy suggests we go back to White Bay Beach during the day to pop into his son’s place, One Love Bar & Grill, a shack where the walls are made of old lifejackets, buoys, nets and other beach junk.
We do, and order a lunch of lobster quesadilla, Carib beer and a decent glass of pinot grigio.
Also on White Bay there are Coco Loco’s, which has a woodburning pizza oven, and Ivan’s Stress-Free Bar, where you can mix your own drink and pay on the honour system if Ivan’s busy elsewhere.
Taxi driver Gerald Chinnery will take you from the main pier to White Bay in seven minutes, just enough time for him to tell you he has 23 siblings.
“My dad had five different women. He was a real island service provider,” said Chinnery with a laugh.
Windstar Cruises’ luxurious Wind Surf is a 312-passenger sailing yacht that’s small enough to glide into small Caribbean ports like Jost.
Our Yachtman Caribbean itinerary, roundtrip from St. Maarten, also took us to Virgin Gorda, Tortola, St. Bart’s and Antigua.
It’s worth spending a night pre-or-post cruise on St. Maarten at the all-inclusive Sonesta Great Bay Resort, which is walking distance to the island’s capital of Philipsburg and its swanky shopping street and hopping waterfront.
A week on a Windstar cruise starts at about $2,500 per person based on double occupancy.
Check out WindstarCruises.com.